Abdul Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 (edited) Edited September 2, 2016 by Abdul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
byrdmath Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 (edited) . The moment I achieve any kind of success, I immediately begin to fall back into the dark corners of my life. Simply consists of getting addicted to absolutely anything that can serve as a distraction from bettering myself. I started building something good in High School, but stopped because I got complacent with my achievements. Hey... wow. I so relate to your struggle, as many others on these forums can, too. Just keep going. I am proud of you and anyone else who is taking such ownership of their decisions up till now, and choosing how they want to live going forward. It's a challenge, but not insurmountable. Building towards goals in your real life, avoiding these escapes is going to pay of huge for us. I recently quoted this in my recent post where i sort of had a moment of clarity (lots of brain fog lately while trying to quit)... "I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal" - Groucho Marx Working towards these substantial goals in the real world is what's going to allow us to be fed, nurtured, and fulfilled. Here's the quote in context: Today i was considering the yearning to run from reality and escape into games, and the consequences of indulging in that escape, especially over prolonged periods. It's so interesting that as you spend more and more time ignoring your reality and the things that it's composed of, the less appealing your reality becomes... both because you become comfortable in the habit of not dealing with it all, and because over time your life falls into disrepair which makes it harder to return to. You get focused on the micro goals and rewards of the game, and forget about the tangible and spiritual rewards which time and effort pay... It's so strange that in giving into cravings to neglect your reality you're actually cheating yourself out of the possibilities of traveling to amazing places, experiencing incredible relationships with people, working as an entrepreneur, building your personal equity in the real world... possibly towards cool stuff like early retirement. Living there, building there - in the real world - affords you the opportunity to physically establish awesome stuff and become engaged on a spiritual level which can lead to fulfillment no game can offer.So, just now, I was reading about Groucho Marx - An amazing comedian everyone should check out - and i read this quote of his: "I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal."This is so profound to me. Think about it.Anyway, keep up the good work. Edited June 26, 2016 by byrdmath Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam Adair Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 Welcome Abdul! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kad Posted June 27, 2016 Share Posted June 27, 2016 Welcome to our group! You have an amazing start and many of us tried many times before we were successful. I think of them a practice sessions and learning opportunities. I would reflect in a non-judgemental way of the reasons that you returned to gaming so you can develop a plan for that. Was it stress? Boredom between high school and university? Analyze your triggers and your needs. What did you use gaming to accomplish and what is a healthier alternative that you like. Good luck to ya! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorkInProgress Posted June 27, 2016 Share Posted June 27, 2016 Hi welcome and good job on that awesome start!Deleting my LoL-Account was a gamechanger for me even if it took another year until I stopped gaming for good. I realized that my porn addiction started there too because these LoL waiting phases have to be used somewhere. It gets linked in your brain. Thats why it is a good idea to work on both addictions at the same time. Browsing reddit and other things is normal at the beginning. To avoid this you could try to establish a morning success routine. Just plan your first hour of the day with easy tasks(make your bed, meditate 5min, make breakfast/coffee, plan your day and do some exercise(smth. like 20min yoga or maybe these 5min-stretching-exercises https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf4lYSg1XpI). If you manage to to these things in the exact same way for 1-2weeks, you create a positive habit and will be surprised how much it affects your productivity and mood over the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted June 28, 2016 Author Share Posted June 28, 2016 Welcome Abdul!Thank you!Welcome to our group! You have an amazing start and many of us tried many times before we were successful. I think of them a practice sessions and learning opportunities. I would reflect in a non-judgemental way of the reasons that you returned to gaming so you can develop a plan for that. Was it stress? Boredom between high school and university? Analyze your triggers and your needs. What did you use gaming to accomplish and what is a healthier alternative that you like. Good luck to ya!I can't seem to remember ever having a hobby which turned out to be a major issue when I had nothing to do during summer break. I instinctively went towards gaming because it was the only familiar hobby I knew. Hi welcome and good job on that awesome start!Deleting my LoL-Account was a gamechanger for me even if it took another year until I stopped gaming for good. I realized that my porn addiction started there too because these LoL waiting phases have to be used somewhere. It gets linked in your brain. Thats why it is a good idea to work on both addictions at the same time. Browsing reddit and other things is normal at the beginning. To avoid this you could try to establish a morning success routine. Just plan your first hour of the day with easy tasks(make your bed, meditate 5min, make breakfast/coffee, plan your day and do some exercise(smth. like 20min yoga or maybe these 5min-stretching-exercises https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf4lYSg1XpI). If you manage to to these things in the exact same way for 1-2weeks, you create a positive habit and will be surprised how much it affects your productivity and mood over the day.Thanks for the advice! Day 6In order to solve yesterday’s problem with internet surfing, I decided to block sites that waste my time. I found an extensive list of all the porn sites on the internet and edited my PC’s hosts file so that they could all be blocked on my computer. I did the same thing with Reddit considering that it was consuming my time.I am really happy that I am making good progress with changing the way I live my life. It has only been 6 days in and I am already noticing a massive change in the way I do everything. What to Improve On:I woke up this morning at 9:45AM and spent at least 30 minutes just staring at a wall. Eventually I decided to grab my phone and browse Reddit for an hour. The solution to this would probably involve getting up within 5 minutes of waking up. Morning Routine:Wash face/hairPut in contacts10-20min meditation + yogaThe rest of my day would probably include programming, reading, and a little Anime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam Adair Posted June 28, 2016 Share Posted June 28, 2016 I am really happy that I am making good progress with changing the way I live my life. It has only been 6 days in and I am already noticing a massive change in the way I do everything.BOOM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
byrdmath Posted June 28, 2016 Share Posted June 28, 2016 In order to solve yesterday’s problem with internet surfing, I decided to block sites that waste my time. I found an extensive list of all the porn sites on the internet and edited my PC’s hosts file so that they could all be blocked on my computer. I did the same thing with Reddit considering that it was consuming my time. I am really happy that I am making good progress with changing the way I live my life. It has only been 6 days in and I am already noticing a massive change in the way I do everything.I love putting up safety nets for myself like you're describing here. I've used open DNS to block so much stuff... both time wasters and pornography. It really is satisfying, and i share that feeling of happiness that comes with making those changes. Keep it up. So great to read other people's victories! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted June 30, 2016 Author Share Posted June 30, 2016 (edited) Day 7: Pretty good day overall, I managed to do plenty of reading, programming, knitting, yoga, meditation, and walking. I really felt happy and at ease for the majority of the day. Day 8: I was pretty lazy all day today. Did my usual morning routine, and meditation. I read a few chapters of The Slight Edge and spent the rest of the day watching Youtube videos. Unlucky I ended up masturbating as well; at least this time without porn. Looks like it's going to take more effort to get rid of my masturbating addiction than video gaming. Not entirely sure how I ended up wasting that much time, but it definitely is challenging to not be lazy sometimes.A positive thing I have noticed about myself over the past week is that while I may sometimes slip up, I immediately work on fixing myself. Hopefully I can “fix” myself better next time and replicate the happiness I started feeling on day #7. Edited June 30, 2016 by Abdul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam Adair Posted June 30, 2016 Share Posted June 30, 2016 Day 7: Pretty good day overall, I managed to do plenty of reading, programming, knitting, yoga, meditation, and walking. I really felt happy and at ease for the majority of the day. Day 8: I was pretty lazy all day today. Did my usual morning routine, and meditation. I read a few chapters of The Slight Edge and spent the rest of the day watching Youtube videos. Unlucky I ended up masturbating as well; at least this time without porn. Looks like it's going to take more effort to get rid of my masturbating addiction than video gaming. Not entirely sure how I ended up wasting that much time, but it definitely is challenging to not be lazy sometimes.A positive thing I have noticed about myself over the past week is that while I may sometimes slip up, I immediately work on fixing myself. Hopefully I can “fix” myself better next time and replicate the happiness I started feeling on day #7.After your morning routine and reading what did you have in your schedule to do next? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted July 1, 2016 Author Share Posted July 1, 2016 (edited) Day 7: Pretty good day overall, I managed to do plenty of reading, programming, knitting, yoga, meditation, and walking. I really felt happy and at ease for the majority of the day. Day 8: I was pretty lazy all day today. Did my usual morning routine, and meditation. I read a few chapters of The Slight Edge and spent the rest of the day watching Youtube videos. Unlucky I ended up masturbating as well; at least this time without porn. Looks like it's going to take more effort to get rid of my masturbating addiction than video gaming. Not entirely sure how I ended up wasting that much time, but it definitely is challenging to not be lazy sometimes.A positive thing I have noticed about myself over the past week is that while I may sometimes slip up, I immediately work on fixing myself. Hopefully I can “fix” myself better next time and replicate the happiness I started feeling on day #7.After your morning routine and reading what did you have in your schedule to do next? Programming and walking outside. Day 9: This was the first day in a few months where I managed to wake up and stay away for the computer for longer than 1 hour; ended up turning on my PC at 4PM. This morning I woke up at 11AM and proceeded to do my usual morning routine. After that, I started meditating and somehow managed to go over 30 minutes. Once I finished meditating, I went on a walk for 45 minutes. After that point, I did some knitting while watching twitch.tv, programming, and a few chapters of The Slight Edge. I ended up spending some time randomly browsing which I did realize made me feel a lot lazier throughout the day. I guess I should be excepting some kind of slip up when it comes to surfing the internet randomly considering that I spent the majority of my life doing it. In order to avoid too much random internet surfing, I have setup a “Task Scheduler” on my PC that automatically opens a message box several times an hour. http://i.imgur.com/BjvD5uU.png Edited July 1, 2016 by Abdul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Pharmacist Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 Easy solution for productiveness. You're not only one that is reading The Slight Edge!I also started and I really like this philosophy.Greetings, Mad Pharmacist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam Adair Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Great work Abdul! Keep going Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted July 4, 2016 Author Share Posted July 4, 2016 (edited) Day 10-12 OverviewI have probably spent a lot of the past 2-3 days reviewing over my progress over the past week in order to look at things I can improve. I originally enjoyed knitting in between queue times in LoL, but now that I have quit it has become significantly less interesting somehow. Not only that, but I have noticed that when I want to do knitting, I instinctively want to watch videos while I knit. I looked through the list of hobbies Cam provides and was drawn towards musical instruments. Doing random research into potential benefits of musical, I came across this interesting TED video and this . Anyways, I ended up going with this electric guitar from Amazon. I have never played a musical instrument in my life, so I am pretty excited to get the guitar on Wednesday.On to other aspects of the past few days, I managed to finish The Slight Edge and learned quite a few things from it which will be mentioned below.“The journey starts with a single step—not with thinking about taking a step.” => This probably summarizes the majority of my life. I thought up several solutions to my problems, but always got lazy when it came time to show up."Sharpen yourself and pursue your path through those simple, small, easy disciplines, and compounded overtime, they will take you to the top" => I am not really sure why I never realized the significance of meditating 10 minutes every day for the rest of my life. I am guessing it is because I was skeptical at first, and then didn't see any immediate results. This just led me into a continuous cycle of failure.Just an update on that whole situation where I setup a Task Scheduler to randomly remind me to stay productive; It somehow didn't work out to well. Rather than having that remind me to stay productive, I think I will just remind myself. At any rate, despite a few set backs these past few days, I have definitely become used to not playing games. I thought that watching competitive League of Legends during the weekend might entice me to play, but it hasn't given me a single urge to play yet.BooksCurrently Reading: "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" - 14% CompleteFinished in 2016(3): The Slight Edge, Talon #1, and Talon #2ProgrammingProgress: I am currently working on a Hotel Reservation System just to re-learn some Java. I have managed to setup the basic functions to edit/create hotel rooms. The next step would involve setting up SQL databases and working on the GUI.Gratefulness1) Good Health2) The invention of contacts! Much easier to work with than glasses.3) Sister's generosity in letting me borrow $100 to buy a guitar. <3Time AllocationYoutube: 30 MinutesRandom Browsing: 30 MinutesTwitch: ~4 HoursAnime: 1 HourGoalsLong Term: Be the best possible person I can be regardless of how difficult the path will be.Short Term: Sort out my life during Summer break so that I can excel in college during Fall.Things to Work OnShort Term: I probably need to start focusing a little more on programming, I have noticed that I haven't done much over the past 4 days.Long Term: College plan - Proper way of studying, tuition, etc. Edited July 4, 2016 by Abdul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam Adair Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Post a pic when your guitar arrives! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dullage Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 YEAH can't wait to see it!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piotr Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 I like your plans. It's very important to keep track on things. Good luck on completing them!Greetings, Piotr. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted July 5, 2016 Author Share Posted July 5, 2016 (edited) Day 14 OverviewPretty standard day; not much else to say at the moment. Books Reading: The Willpower Instinct – 5% Complete *Temporary Dropped Book: "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" - 14% Complete ^I might pick this book back up at a later date. I think The Willpower Instinct would be more useful for me right now.Finished in 2016(3): The Slight Edge, Talon #1, and Talon #2 Programming Progress: Didn’t do too much programming today. I just set up a few functions to prepare for tomorrow. Gratefulness 1) Candy 2) Hugs <3 3) Fireworks Time Allocation Youtube: 1 Hour Random Browsing: 30 Minutes Twitch: ~30 Minutes Anime: 0 Hour Edited July 5, 2016 by Abdul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam Adair Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 Willpower is probably a better book for now. 7 habits can be a bit dry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted July 6, 2016 Author Share Posted July 6, 2016 (edited) Day 14 OverviewJust completed week 2! After the initial day, I don’t think I have gotten a single urge to play video games which is a good sign considering I have spent the majority of my time these past few weeks at home. The only gaming related thing I still do is watch competitive LoL streams which I seem to be regulating rather well. During week 3-4, I will be focusing on understanding the roots of my compulsion to masturbate, watch porn, and browse the internet randomly. I haven’t watched porn/masturbated since Day 8 so that is a good sign! Hopefully reading “The Willpower Instinct” will help out as well.BooksReading: The Willpower Instinct – 12% CompleteTemporary Dropped Reading: "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" - 14% CompleteFinished in 2016(3): The Slight Edge, Talon #1, and Talon #2ProgrammingProgress: Did some of the basic GUI for the main JFrame. Hopefully I can add some functionality soon. http://i.imgur.com/jOoo9n3.pngGratefulness1) Amazon – such an amazing site!2) The Willpower Instinct book3) Meditation Time AllocationYoutube: 1 HourRandom Browsing: 30 MinutesTwitch: 5 MinutesAnime: 0 Hour Edited July 6, 2016 by Abdul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam Adair Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 Great work Abdul! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted July 7, 2016 Author Share Posted July 7, 2016 (edited) Day 15 OverviewI was being really lazy today. The only thing I managed to accomplish was reading and a lot of walking. I will see what I can do tomorrow about being less lazy.BooksReading: The Willpower Instinct – 20% CompleteFinished in 2016(3): The Slight Edge, Talon #1, and Talon #2ProgrammingProgress: N/AGratefulness1) Ice Cream 2)3) Time AllocationYoutube: 1 HourRandom Browsing: 1 HourTwitch: 0 MinutesAnime: 0 Minutes Edited July 7, 2016 by Abdul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam Adair Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 Start your day strong and use that momentum to carry you throughout the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdul Posted July 9, 2016 Author Share Posted July 9, 2016 (edited) Day 16 OverviewDecent day today. Managed to get a lot of reading done today, but I did waste some time on Youtube.BooksReading: The Willpower Instinct – 33% CompleteCracking the Coding Interview: 0/687 PagesHabitsMeditation: YES – 5 minGuitar: YES – 20 minYoga: NO – Some walking + PushupsProgrammingProgress: Made several adjustments to the program’s overall GUI direction. Will probably setup short term goals for the remainder of the project.Gratefulness1) Music!2) PizzaTime AllocationYoutube: 1 HourRandom Browsing: 1 HourTwitch: 3 HoursAnime/TV: 30 MinutesGoals for Tomorrow1) Read The Willpower Instinct & Cracking the Coding Interview2) Some Programming + decide on weekly goals3) Yoga4) ~15min meditation5) Make tomorrow more productive than today!!!!!! Edited July 9, 2016 by Abdul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cam Adair Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 Great job Abdul. If you can do it one day, you can do it any day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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